OKC Regional Transit System

[GoGators]

Okay and apply that same logic to subways and Amtrak and watch how high the price of a ticket gets. That’s ridiculous.

And the turnpike between OKC and Tulsa would be 80 dollars one way.

The point is, the vast majority of funds currently going to road construction isn't funded by vehicle users. Taking a portion away to fund transit wouldn't be "taking" anything from cars. No taxes paid by car users would be diverted at all.

[Plutonic Panda]

And the turnpike between OKC and Tulsa would be 80 dollars one way.

The point is, the vast majority of funds currently going to road construction isn't funded by vehicle users. Taking a portion away to fund transit wouldn't be "taking" anything from cars. No taxes paid by car users would be diverted at all.

Ah yes, whataboutism at its finest. But given the fact you just completely dodged my point and contradicted yourself while doing says a lot. I’m also very curious how you came to that $80 figure but it’s quite irrelevant anyways.

Yes, the vast majority of road construction is funded by users as most people in America drive and they pay the taxes that fund roads even if indirectly.

But I wasn’t making that claim when I said I opposed direct user fees solely to support a mode of transportation taken away for another mode. You are trying to twist my words and do what you love to do which is argue with anything I say if is supports cars.

Once again, I would bet any proposal that takes gas taxes or any other vehicle user fees and gives it mass transit is likely a no go. This isn’t NYC.

[HOT ROD]

Taking revenue from cars to fund mass transit will quickly result in me and I’m sure many others opposing this entirely.

Plu, it's not taking anything from cars. It's adding a tax to cars for the purpose of transit funding. This is the mechanism used nationwide (such as Seattle and likely your LA as well) to fund local and regional transit, along with property tax, due to it's stability and very low marginal increase necessary.

It's not saying, hey - we bring in this amount for cars now lets take away this from the car to move to transit. It's saying hey we bring in this amount for cars - keep that the same but ADD a small increase to fund transit. ..

[GoGators]

Ah yes, whataboutism at its finest. But given the fact you just completely dodged my point and contradicted yourself while doing says a lot. I’m also very curious how you came to that $80 figure but it’s quite irrelevant anyways.

Yes, the vast majority of road construction is funded by users as most people in America drive and they pay the taxes that fund roads even if indirectly.

But I wasn’t making that claim when I said I opposed direct user fees solely to support a mode of transportation taken away for another mode. You are trying to twist my words and do what you love to do which is argue with anything I say if is supports cars.

Once again, I would bet any proposal that takes gas taxes or any other vehicle user fees and gives it mass transit is likely a no go. This isn’t NYC.

Im telling you the majority of road construction is not funded by user fees. It’s subsidized from general taxes (income tax, sales tax etc) and federal debt. If you took some income tax revenue that currently goes to road construction and gave it to transit you wouldn’t be stealing anything from drivers because drivers didn’t pay for it to begin with.

[catch22]

I read a comment on a news article (first mistake) about a new roundabout going in in town, and it basically went: "i won't vote for any new funding increase for roads; we already voted for a pothole repair tax; and they are spending that money on repaving roads instead of filling in potholes". IDK man, I would rather have a fresh surface instead of a pothole that will be filled 50 times in the next 2 years.

People will oppose any increase in funding for infrastructure; but bitch all day long about the bad roads. And when they do spend money fixing roads, they aren't doing it the right way.

[Plutonic Panda]

Im telling you the majority of road construction is not funded by user fees. It’s subsidized from general taxes (income tax, sales tax etc) and federal debt. If you took some income tax revenue that currently goes to road construction and gave it to transit you wouldn’t be stealing anything from drivers because drivers didn’t pay for it to begin with.

And never once did I claim it was. Direct user fees are a completely different animal. I’m against that and if I were for it than it would be almost unaffordable for the average American to drive or take a train. Subterranean HRT is costing north of a billion per mile.

The proposal of taking user fees would be no different than taking fare money collected and giving it to cars. That’s a proper comparison. It’s something I also don’t support.

I have no clue where you are getting the idea that drivers don’t pay for roads. The money doesn’t grow on trees. It comes from tax money most of taxpayers drive cars.

[Plutonic Panda]

Plu, it's not taking anything from cars. It's adding a tax to cars for the purpose of transit funding. This is the mechanism used nationwide (such as Seattle and likely your LA as well) to fund local and regional transit, along with property tax, due to it's stability and very low marginal increase necessary.

It's not saying, hey - we bring in this amount for cars now lets take away this from the car to move to transit. It's saying hey we bring in this amount for cars - keep that the same but ADD a small increase to fund transit. ..

Measure M pulls from a variety of sources one of which I do believe is a gas tax or registration fee— I’m opposed to that but it is what it is. Apart from supporting it or not, I don’t think it would go over well in OKC but hey I’ve been wrong before.

[GoGators]

And never once did I claim it was. Direct user fees are a completely different animal. I’m against that and if I were for it than it would be almost unaffordable for the average American to drive or take a train. Subterranean HRT is costing north of a billion per mile.

The proposal of taking user fees would be no different than taking fare money collected and giving it to cars. That’s a proper comparison. It’s something I also don’t support.

I have no clue where you are getting the idea that drivers don’t pay for roads. The money doesn’t grow on trees. It comes from tax money most of taxpayers drive cars.

Drivers don’t pay for the roads. Drivers are subsidized to drive on the roads.

Gas tax, registration fees, tolls, tags, sales tax on cars, none of that comes close to paying for roads. That’s what I’m saying. You can’t take something from drivers that they never had to begin with.

On a slightly different note the federal funds do in fact come out of nowhere. The money doesn’t even have to grow on trees. It’s just strokes on a keyboard. It literally doesn’t have to come from anywhere. Waiting for it to grow on trees would be way less efficient.

[HOT ROD]

I think you'll be surprised plu - esp once people see how little of an increase is needed.

Even just an add to the gas tax (which is and still would be the lowest in the region) would go a long way to funding the entire operations. Add in a small fraction of a percent per year property tax assessment and maybe balance it with marginal 'vehicle sin-taxes' like $25 vehicle license, $1 per toll, $75 special transit license plate, etc and you get a fully funded operation. Now we still will likely need a temporary Maps-type sales tax for the vehicles, rail/station construction, and contingency but even that shouldn't be more than $100M or so to get us going. Add in federal (and state) funds, and we have a system with fares people can digest.

The problem we have done here in Seattle is we created sound transit bonds but use all the aforementioned to pay them back. Including interest on those bonds - and of course we're over budget so they keep coming back every couple of years with new bonds. . On and on. OKC doesn't need to go down this path: sales tax for capital, other minimal tax adds (maybe gas being the biggest) for ops/maintenance. There you go.

Hutch - any thoughts?

[Plutonic Panda]

A transit license plate would be cool. Regardless how I feel I just see OKC going for it given how prominent the car culture is there. Even if it were $5 extra a month I think tons of people would oppose in principle but who knows.

[Plutonic Panda]

If the leaders in this metro were smart, they’d really get on the ball with pumping money into a true mass transit network including real BRT(not that enhanced bus service on NWE), light rail, and commuter rail. This current administration is probably one of the most rail and bus friendly we’ve had in awhile and assuming Biden is re-elected, if leaders started getting these projects ready now they could be shovel ready for Biden’s next term.

In the mean time they should be trying to expand as many freeways and roads as possible working with OkDOT to get this underway. I-35 on the southside needs a major expansion with the 10 lane treatment to be proactive.

[HangryHippo]

If there’s no commuter rail from at least Edmond to Norman in 6 years, that’s a big failure.

[Plutonic Panda]

If there’s no commuter rail from at least Edmond to Norman in 6 years, that’s a big failure.

I could have sworn that 10 years ago we were told it would be operating by the early 2020s. I was complaining about even that timeline. Now I just wished it were true lol

[LocoAko]

Second Virtual Town Hall – March 31 2021 @ 6:30pm

Zoom link: https://bit.ly/2OPAtNh

The second Virtual Town Hall will be to present draft concepts and highlights of the Transit System Plan for review. After the Transit System Plan is complete, a multi-year process to begin an Alternatives Analysis will being. The Alternatives Analysis will evaluate corridors, types of transit, and station locations.

In addition, https://engagekh.com/rtamoves is now up-and-running and they are soliciting feedback for ranking transit corridor options.

[LocoAko]

Here is the draft presented tonight of the Transit System Plan that is up for adoption on April 21 by the RTA. Not exactly a ton of detail but it at least gives an idea of the prioritized corridors (including the airport!).

[HOT ROD]

An Airport route ONLY works if it has FEW stops if any stops along the way or is augmented with an express bus that has few if any stops.

the reason the Airport bus failed were two main reasons - 1) the bus did not run late enough for airport employees/students to commute via it, and 2) the bus had WAY too many stops along the way for the traveling public to justify using it.

Easy solution: have two Airport bus routes - 1 that's express from Downtown to the Airport along the freeways with the Possible single stop at the Fairgrounds or something thereabouts, 2 that's "local" from Downtown to the Airport along local streets, many stops along the way including to/through the FAA Academy; and runs late.

The express airport route would run during airport business hours while the local airport route would be most of the day if not 24 hour. the local route could also provide transfers for folks in S OKC area.

Charge more for the express airport bus but it better be a nice one (near BRT: Articulated or double deck with luggage area).

IMO we don't need a rail line to the airport, decent bus service serving the two audiences is more than necessary. BTW, this is exactly what we do here yet we have routes from Tacoma, Bellevue, and Seattle to the airport. OKC may eventually want that too for Norman and possibly NW OKC/West to the airport.

[shawnw]

IMO currently the best bus route to the airport would simply go to the car rental center, which has free shuttles to the terminal. Saves a bunch of time/trouble for the bus itself. If you make the effort to get the bus to the terminal you risk route timing delays/reliability issues, depending on time of day.

Main issue with trying to service the FAA with bus is that the lowest hanging fruit for the buses would be the academy students that are here for six months at a time. If all the students were centrally located downtown or something, this would be a no-brainer. But, instead there are a half dozen or more contracted apartments all over town, and the students are split up. There are shuttles the FAA pays for to take the students between their apartments and MMAC every single morning and evening, five days a week. You'd need the FAA's full buy-in here and that won't be easy. When I worked at MMAC I tried really hard to find someone to talk to that gave a darn about such an effort. Even just a bus to the visitor center that wouldn't create a security issue. No one cared or wanted to listen. Granted that was five plus years ago. But it would still be a challenge IMO. Don't get me wrong, I WANT this. There are 7K+ people working there, it makes sense.

[Hutch]

RTA Approves Regional Transit System Plan

[Hutch]

[shawnw]

Um, what's up with that dotted line beyond the NW BRT? Legend says dotted line means initiatives by others under study.

[d-usa]

I am still waiting for it to be named the Greater Oklahoma City (or County/Central) Area Rapid Transit system.

GOCART 2021!

[Urbanized]

Um, what's up with that dotted line beyond the NW BRT? Legend says dotted line means initiatives by others under study.

Wouldn’t it be likely to indicate consideration by EMBARK (others) to extend the BRT further up the same corridor? That’s how I read the same dashed line down Shields and also up the NE corridor; BRT under consideration by EMBARK.

[Bowser214]

That would be so awesome for OKC!

[Plutonic Panda]

It would be nice to plan an orbital transit line around the metro as well.

[Teo9969]

It would be nice to plan an orbital transit line around the metro as well.

Yeah, if we ever want someone to take public transit from Yukon to Edmond, I'd think this makes sense - but I will say that we absolutely have to have quality local system usage first (i.e. ridership in and around Edmond has to be high and ridership in and around Yukon needs to be high independent of each other). Otherwise, it will all just have to route through Santa Fe Station even if it makes the journey so very long. Can't be running a bus around Kilpatrick to funnel only a dozen passengers per hour.